Hastings Rental Health Housing Co-op

02/12/2024

Hasting Rental Health Housing Co-op joined the Hastings Assembles workshop this Sunday which was all about housing and green spaces. If housing must be built, it must be built AROUND green spaces, not on them. There is no point building housing without looking after the biodiversity that keeps our eco system, our food and our water supply healthy.

We talked to the participants about our upcoming plans and the support we will need to fend off competition by developers who will try their hardest to appeal to local councillors over community led housing. Why choose community led housing over private developers?

Community led housing =

∆ Long term secure truly affordable housing based on local key worker wages and not market rents (market rents are not affordable to local carers, bar staff, cabbies, musicians, painter/decorators etc)

∆ The housing stays in the community. It can not be sold off.

∆ There are no weird half social housing half shared ownership bla bla schemes. The housing is simply owned by the community.

∆ You know the people involved. You bump into them in town and can ask about the project. We are not tucked away in some corporate tower or obscured in several layers of complex webs of dissolved or acquisitioned companies.

∆ Protecting community from outpricing and displacement.

∆ Control over sustainable home building practise using local builders and contractors.

∆ Densification over deforestation: this means building housing on unused or untapped spaces within existing built up areas, and preserving our green spaces.

∆ Autonomy and agency of co-operative tenants to manage and repair their home rather than having to wait for unreliable or irresponsible housing associations or landlords to do these jobs. Which also fosters a more skilled community.

∆ Rents as affordable as social housing for tenants leaving temporary accommodation

∆ All housing is affordable, all tenants are equal, no one pays more or less for the same space, and no one has more or less power or say in the running of the co-operative. Decisions are made by consensus, in a sociocratic democratic way.

∆ Lower rents have a ripple effect on wider market rents. The more affordable and safeguarded housing is, the more choice renters have, and the less bu****it we need to put up with.

∆ Homes to live in, not for profit

29/11/2024

Hastings Rental Health Housing Co-op is now part of the steering group for Hastings Borough Council's Housing Strategy alongside .hastings and Citizens Advice Bureau. The message from all of us was loud and clear, more listening to those most impacted, and more community led housing solutions, CLTs and housing co-ops.

Decisions cant keep being made over our heads. Think long term, stop putting money into private entities and invest in homes that stay affordable and within Hastings community.

31/10/2024

How affordable is affordable housing? Where are all these people coming from that can afford this housing? Where are all these high paid jobs coming from for this housing? Space?

At this point in time we need to take a realistic responsible look at whats going on on this planet. Unnaffordable homes are being built everywhere, displacing people all over, for the profit of a small amount of wealthy people. What we need is a big wave of not for profit housing to be able to house normal people truly affordably,

This is where co-operative community owned housing - that is purely to live in and not created for any other purpose than homes to live in - is crucial.

Image from video by on average new afforeable housing costs. Please follow them and watch

04/10/2024

Hastings Rental Health joined several campaigners and alternative housing organisations yesterday (along with a whole chunk of landlords) to discuss the new Council Housing Strategy for the years to come. We have been in discussion with council as a co-operative because they recognise it is cheaper to support new co-ops than it is to buy as a council who is already shelling out millions a year for temporary accommodation. With many new small co-ops, people in TA would have homes, the list would go down, more homes would be safeguarded from Right to Buy profiteering (which as a council buulding new social housing, they cannot protect) and rents would stay affordable. This has a knock on effect on local economy as people have more disposable income to spend in businesses, keeping shops open. Wins all round.

20/01/2024

Happy 2024 folks. We started the year with a couple of housing issues for our coop members, causing the typical unnecessary flailing, uncertainty and stress. In the mean time we have had another meeting with our coop advisor and conversations have moved to the next level with potential collaborators under the Hastings Housing Alliance and and wider discussions with other coops across Sussex on a clustered approach. So that's exciting.

We also met with Hastings Housing Alliance to discuss the local plan for housing (there is none!) and how coops should be an integral part of the plan.

Yesterday we visited in Eastbourne, a community arts space where animation A Bedroom For Everyone by was being screened. He went around the country over a number of years interviewing grassroots housing groups about how they tackle issues collectively. & the lovely people at Devonshire treated us to a delicious portuguese vegan lunch by local caterer traditional portuguese dishes including bacalhão & the impressively meaty francesinha that threw Sarah back to sitting round the dinner table with her late portuguese gran. Proper wholesome food and by god the bread. Wholly recommend. We spent the afternoon discussing housing and campaigning with a wider group of creative housing activists, a cathartic experience to say the least as its a little niche world but creative activism is so vital. Art is our eyes to the world, not an add on.
We also got to see the amazing work of & at both such important bodies of work around the bureaocratic blocades to our fully realised humanity. Our right to be.

We are currently wading through pages and pages of information on pockets of local land as well as large buildings. We need this to progress to the next stage, so it will be all research until we find something appropriate.

And you should see a little update from us in some time soon once the editor decides where & when it fits.

Please do keep your eyes and ears open for any appropriate bits of land you come across. All the best team, HRH x

05/12/2023

Some good conversations around housing yesterday under the newly formed Hastings Housing Alliance which Hastings Rental Health have signed up to. Let's hope everyone sticks at it. Renters need the support and the muscle of their community to make any real and long lasting change. Interesting ideas emerged, look out for more meetings and information and please do get stuck in yourselves.

27/11/2023

Hastings Rental Health Housing Coop will be speaking at this event alongside other solution focused housing organisations ✨️

27/11/2023

Homes sitting empty while council goes bankrupt paying for temporary accomodation and people are freezing in tents....

09/11/2023

We are still waiting on confirmation on news (sadly not good news) about Gensing Manor. But we have been busy with our first business plan meeting with our coop finance expert who has helped set up over 100 coops and feel assured we will get there. This means we are on the hunt again, so do share any land/ buildings that you come across.

In the mean time please sign and share this petition, it is such a waste of housing and money and will only take more affordable housing out of Hastings market, forcing council to pay for yet more extortionate temporary accommodation:

Petition to Hastings Council

Don’t Sell Council homes!

We call on Hastings Council not to sell the 6 flats they own above Millets shop in Hastings Town Centre. These flats could be rented to people who desperately need secure, affordable homes - rather than ending up in the hands of a private landlord who will charge completely unaffordable market rates.

The Council plans to sell the flats and use the money to pay off the debt they have racked up on emergency accommodation for homeless people - but this is a crazy strategy that funnels money from public assets straight into the pockets of the private companies who are profiteering from homelessness and renting temporary housing to the council at extortionate prices.

The solution to the housing crisis is to keep the housing we already own and bring more housing into public ownership.

The council claims it does not have the staff in place to manage these properties. So why not hold an emergency public meeting inviting all interested parties to come forward who can manage the flats on the council’s behalf and rent out the flats at social housing rates? We have a number of co-ops in the town looking for premises and also Hastings Commons, a community land trust, who could take them on.

We call on the council not to take the short-term option of cashing in valuable public assets - but work with the community to keep these flats as a community asset for generations to come.

09/11/2023

We are still waiting on confirmation on news (sadly not good news) about Gensing Manor. But we have been busy with our first business plan meeting with our coop finance expert who has helped set up over 100 coops over 30yrs and feel assured we will get there. This means we are on the hunt again, so do share any land/ buildings that you come across.

In the mean time please sign and share this petition. The council is selling off this building they renovated - these homes were meant to be publicly owned and affordable. They must be kept publicly owned. This town simply cannot afford to lose more housing nor can the council.

Don’t Sell Council homes!